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So you have a product idea on your head, or even you have gone ahead with the execution, and it’s at the production stage, or it’s due to be released out to the market. It’s at that stage that things get hot when you want to launch your product so that your audience can start buying.
And now you are looking around for how best you can launch your new product and attract people so that there is a reasonable demand on the market. You are wondering about a secret you could add to your product for it to succeed on the market or how you can differentiate your brand from the rest so that you can make the very best of your product.
1. Consider the users' needs first
Before launching a new product, you should think about their needs first and ensure that they are fully championed.
One of the most efficient ways of understanding customer needs is by conducting a market survey or business research about customers’ expectations of your product once it’s released onto the market.
Surveys are usually conducted individually with open-ended questions or in a group through Focus Group Discussion interviews. Therefore, you can prepare to ask your customers questions relating to your product, for instance, why would you buy this product? How do you expect the product to improve your quality of life? How best can we improve the product and more other questions of a kind?
This will help you know the gaps you need to fill so that your product can meet your customer's needs and expectations. Customers get attracted to products that improve their standards and add value to their state of living. Understanding your customers' buying habits and expectations towards your products gives you a strategy and where you can begin your promotion.
2. Discover and understand your competition
Given that there are many competitors in the market, you need to know your point of strength. Know what differentiates your product and sets you apart from the rest of the competitors. Build on that strength so that you can gain more customers and also retain them.
Ask yourself evaluating questions. Why do customers continuously choose my product over my competitors? What is unique about my product that other competitors don't have? Understand your points of strength and maximize them to build a reputation for your brand.
Additionally, identify the unique advantages your business has over other companies. Finally, find strategies of how you can withdrawal the attention of all your audience from your competitors. Portray the beauty of your product to customers until they are blindfolded and can no longer see what your competitors produce. Let them see value in the development and trust it fully until they believe that your product fulfills their needs, and no other companies can do that.
3. Make a minimum viable product and test it before circulating it in the market.
It’s a hazardous investment in a product from the initial phases of planning and production to the level of putting it out to the market. If your product is ready to go out to the market, ensure that you hire beta testers to try it out to give you feedback about its performance. This helps you to adjust and improve where it is necessary.
Getting feedback and making improvements helps you get the best of your product and avoid unnecessary bad customer reviews that can destroy your brand's reputation in the market.
4. Enhance your product
Once you put your product on the market for either testing or selling, try to get feedback from people who have used it. For example, you could ask the people you hired to test or colleagues, family and friends and associates to give you feedback about the product and how it’s performing on the market and if there is a need for improvement or not.
Also, you can decide to get feedback from the public by conducting either individual surveys or gathering the information through Focus Group Discussions. Use the collected data from feedback and reviews to adjust and improve the quality of your product accordingly so that you can meet customers’ needs.
Make a few changes here and there to show a difference in the quality of the product. Inquire about valuable features you have not added and the difference they can include in your product. Then see how best to fit those features into your product. Beautify your product, let it overwhelm your audience with joy, and make sure that customers don't just look at it as a need but rather a want.
5. Monitor your market numbers
Knowing your profit margins as you launch your product is essential. Check out the performance of the existing products on the market and determine the number of products sold, the total amount of revenue generated, break-even sales volume and net profit earned.
When you have the correct figures, then embark on figuring out the most numerical goals that make the most sense. The existing numerical numbers for the current products will give you a reasonable guess for your new product and what goals you should set. For example, how much conversion traffic do you need to reach your destination, and what do you need to do to hit your goal?
6. Market and promote your product before the launch
To have a successful product launch, the marketing function must carefully plan for it. Before your product launch, you should create awareness amongst your target audience by promoting your product to them.
Creating awareness prepares the market to receive the product, and by the time you fully release the product to the population, they will be highly demanding for it. This helps you drive more sales of a new product.
Here are a few ways through which you can market and promote your product before the launch:
Have a landing page for the new product on your business website
Reach out to public relations representatives to create an embargoed press release
Craft content for your product and have it ready to be presented
Advertise in many appropriate places to attract traffic
Email campaigns that encourage sign-ups
1. Have enough supply backup to support and meet the market demand
It is very wise to release your product to the market when you are sure that you have enough already in stores to meet the increasing market demand. Before you launch the product, ensure that you already have established a manageable supply chain to meet any amount of order on the market.
Check out your vendors and see if they have the capacity to supply you as many units as you may require in case of demand excessively increases. Then, work with your vendors and find ways to boost production as you prepare for your product launch, especially if you anticipate that demand will likely exceed supply.
2. Circulate news about your upcoming product through your networks and friends
When you are due to launch your product, you have already set the date to get started and get moving. You can now inform your media influencers, customers, vendors, friends, family and associates to be aware. Ensure that you maintain the same date to avoid unnecessary charges that will cost you.
When the date comes, you can then go ahead and market your product on your landing page, media, email campaigns and request your network to share the news widely. Try to capture your audience's attention on every platform, repost and share reminders in the closest days of the launch.
3. Reach out to your press after the launch
When your product launch is done, the next thing is now paying attention to the product's performance on the market. Suppose you see that your product is doing well on the market and there are good reviews. In that case, you can now reach out to the public relations firms and media outlets that captured your product development story before the launch and request them to give you an update so that you can take your customers via your product development journey.
The audience loves to hear stories of developing a product from inception to the launch and market release. You can share your product development story via all your social media pages. It could either be; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
4. Take into account public feedback post-launch
Now that you are sure that the product launch is done and readily available on the market get ready for customer reviews and feedback. If you have a website and your new product is there, you can use Google and other sites to get customer feedback and reviews.
Public perception of your product is essential since it helps you know what's right and where to improve. It also helps to see if you are delivering to the real expectations of the market.
Where you get negative reviews, ask to be pardoned and improve accordingly so that you can meet what the market expects from you. Look for quick solutions to address your customer concerns as you look for long-lasting solutions so that your upcoming clients don't have to meet the inefficiencies.
Giving quick feedback upon your customer's reactions shows that you care about your customers and their happiness. This promotes a good customer experience, loyalty, and devotion to your brand, ensuring your continuous support, profits, and revenue.